Page 31 of Vampire Soldier
Perry is silent on the other end. Rehearsal music comes through the line but a door closes and it disappears. “What are we dealing with here, Mal? Something that’ll threaten the opening or is it Nightshade business?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, scowling. Other than Blake, Perry is the only one here that knows my true nature.
“It’s business, Perry. The opening night depends on her.” I’m quick to strip the truth of the matter down to a cold, hard calculation—Blake being a vital cog in this well-oiled machine of mine. “A second Stage Producer quitting would wreck us. Her safety, her focus, this is crucial. Understand?”
“Right,” Perry says, but I can hear his caution in the silence that hangs afterward. “Business first, then. You’ve got it.”
I disconnect without allowing myself any more regret, almost too abrupt, the click echoing the tension through my bones. The backlit numbers glow on the screen, mocking what I’ve done—what I’ve created by crossing that line with her. She’s become essential, yet I’ve masked that truth in layers of thought that feel like lies. Lies that soothe me and sting like alcohol on an open wound.
I rise from my desk, each movement intentional, methodical, as if I’m choreographing the steps to a dance that hasn’t ended. I sidestep the raging tempest inside me—a dark confluence of obsession and responsibility. A logic that shouldn’t exist between protector and the protected.
The alley greets me like an old friend, the sharp air slicing through the remnants of stale cologne and wolf musk clinging to my clothes. I journey through the shadows, every step resonating with the nightlife thrumming just out of reach. Gray smoke coils from a nearby dumpster, the light of my phone swinging in wide arcs, illuminating the jagged bricks and scattered litter around me.
But my mind clings to her.
The way she moves, that alluring defiance punctuating her laughter as she serves drinks. The ravenous glints that flash in her eyes when her humor clashes with an unwelcome advance. I grumble at myself, breaking the pattern of snowballing thoughts; it’s business. Just business.
Yet, as I run across the rooftops toward the Nightshade Clan House, every footfall echoes with a deeper truth I refuse to acknowledge. She’s not just my worker. No, she’s become something I can’t put into words without poisoning the air around me. There’s a shift in my pulse, an ancient rhythm thrumming through my veins—the urge to claim what’s mine.
Is Kit’s interest pulling at my seams? He thinks he can just move in. As if this game—this insipid duet of glances and tension—is for him to engage with. I suppress a growl, drawing in a breath so sharp it scrapes down my throat like broken glass.
He doesn’t get to play this game.
Not in my city. Not with her.
We had one night but that doesn’t mean she’s available. If she’d wanted the shifter, she’d have accepted his advances during her last night at The Gentlemen’s Study. But she didn’t. Which means he needs to get the message to back the fuck off.
The Barrows House rises like memory out of the dark—charming, quiet, and deceptively warm beneath the night. Not the gothic monstrosity newcomers always expect, but a three-story French colonial with hanging baskets spilling color between white porch columns and gardens blooming even under moonlight. The black wrought-iron gate clicks shut behind me with a polite finality. Lush greenery crowds either side of the short brick path, brushing my boots as I pass.
The wraparound porch is empty, lamps low behind the glass mosaic front door. Joséphine’s aesthetic is all over this place—welcoming, lived-in, strategic. It draws you in before you realize you’re inside the lion’s den.
The air inside is light. Too light for the work we do here. Faint lavender clings to the corners, but underneath it is something older—ash and blood and the sharp hum of power. The kind of quiet you only earn through centuries of loyalty and enforcement.
Off the foyer, I catch Eloise’s familiar scent and the steady drum of her heartbeat as she’s tucked in an oversized chair in Ambrose’s urban jungle of a sitting room. I still think it’s amusing that he’s found someone as intense about houseplants as she is. Since she’s moved into his suite on the top floor, she’s added another twenty plants at least. She’s currently focused on whatever is on her laptop and I’m not in the mood to tease her. Not with the agitation crackling in my joints.
I bypass the dining room and art-lined hallways without glancing twice at the keepsakes cluttering the bookshelves. Each one tells a story no one’s asked to hear in decades. Some of them are mine.
Through the east wing, past Ambrose’s suite, I descend a narrower hall lit by soft modern sconces—Joséphine again. The door I stop at is sleek and steel-cored, disguised as wood. The biometric lock hums beneath my palm as I press to unlock it.
It yields, the door sliding into the pocket in the wall.
Inside, the data chamber smells faintly of ozone and old paper. Books stacked beside state-of-the-art screens. Technology woven into legacy, many of the upgrades recent thanks to Lan’s mate Wren and her access to unreleased technology.
Kasar leans against a central table, long fingers idly turning a dagger hilt. He doesn’t look up, but the tension in his stillness shifts—a readiness coiling under velvet calm. Beside him, Lan barely glances up from the wall of monitors, golden eyes flickering in the glow of rapid data scroll. The room is full of soft clicks and the quiet insistence of information being bent to our will.
I pull out the gift and the bracelet box hits the tabletop with a satisfying finality. It doesn’t clatter. Doesn’t tip. Just lands with a soft, damning weight on the polished old wood—right in front of Kasar and Lan.
Lan doesn’t look up immediately from whatever stream of digital filth he’s filtering through. Kasar, though . . . Kasar watches me with that patient, perpetual stillness of his—like gravity is centered somewhere under his sternum.
The box is followed by the card. I touch it as little as possible, loathing the fact that I already have enough of Kit’s scent on me as I do.
Lan gives a little flick of his eyes toward the items between us.
“So,” he drawls, “we having tea and trinkets now? Shall we braid each other’s hair and talk about our feelings next?”
Dick. If he spent most of his time here, I’d be tempted to eat his Count Chocula cereal but the cabinets have been empty of it since he’s moved Topside with Wren and their daughter, Emily.
Kasar hasn’t said a damn thing yet, but I feel his attention like a burning fuse. The difference is, Kasar doesn’t bait. He waits. And right now, he’s waiting for the reason I dragged both of them off more critical tasks for what looks like a scented note and jewelry.
